Samwise Gamgee and the Ring: Extended Edition
by Flame Tigress
Summary: What if Frodo had died in Cirith Ungol and the duty and burden of the Ring had become Sam's? The original story, plus even more angst, pain, philosophy, and references to the book.


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Author's Note: Well, I don't really know what inspired this lovely thing (read "lovely" with a measure of sarcasm…there you go). I wanted to kill someone. No, no, I wasn't mad, and I don't _dislike _Frodo. In fact, I like him very much, and that is why I chose to kill him. I wanted to kill him because I like killing people. I think you're taking it the wrong way again. All right, I shall phrase it thus: I like writing deaths. (See my Harry Potter fic "The Dark Lord's Armageddon," and you shall see that I do indeed like killing people.) They provide me with great opportunity for describing pain, sorrow, and a great many other delightful emotions that make me cry when I'm listening to "The Breaking of the Fellowship" on the _Lord of the Rings_ soundtrack, especially if they happen to people I like. Also, I had been reading stories involving violence, pain, and angst, and I quite enjoyed them because they can be very well-written and evocative. So here I am writing about people kicking the bucket…it's that phrase again; I just love using it. However, death scenes can be very cliched and there are certain formulas used in all tear-jerkers that become tedious, and I am afraid that my own death scenes in this fic are very cliched indeed. But they're touching…sort of. Think of Elijah Wood's abnormally large, abnormally blue eyes, and anything is touching.

The other thing that inspired this fic is my dad. He read the _Lord of the Rings_ trilogy a long time ago, and he only remembered one thing from _The Return of the King: _Frodo loses a finger. My dad has a weak stomach, so that would stand out in his mind, now wouldn't it? The thing is that he didn't remember that Gollum bit it off (I'm feeling a little ill just thinking about that…) – he thought Frodo cut it off himself because there was no other way to get rid of the Ring. Well, that's attributing a little more courage to Frodo than he was given in the book, but I thought it was sort of romantic.

All right, the story's crap, and the schizophrenic hobbit (?!?) may be a little disturbing, but Sam did talk to himself and killing people _is_ fun. (evil laugh)

It picks up in Cirith Ungol after Sam sings his defiant little song and hears someone answering.

P.S. Stay tuned after the feature for "Extended Edition" Author's Note. Hehe.

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"Samwise Gamgee and the Ring": Special Extended Edition

Upon hearing the faint answering call to his song, Sam's heart began to race with hope beyond hope. It might have been Frodo, he thought; he prayed it was Frodo, still alive, still able to recognize his servant's voice. Sam rushed in the direction of the voice, climbing up ever more stairs, pushing aside his own fears of the darkness and foes lurking in the dreadful tower. A ladder rose to an opening in the ceiling, through which the red light of some sort of lamp streamed – a room. It seemed that no one was in there, for no more sound emerged. But Sam searched anyway, for even if his master was indeed dead, Sam had to find his body at least.

When Sam's head emerged into the red glare of the lamp that illuminated the small chamber, his frantic searching yielded the sight of a lonely figure lying prone in the corner. It was Frodo.

He was lying naked on a pile of filthy rags, as if he were a useless item put aside there until its careless owner figured out where to put it, or got around to throwing it away. With a cry Sam ran to him, tears starting in his eyes. Frodo barely twitched and moaned unintelligibly when he heard the sound of approaching footsteps.

"Mr. Frodo!" Sam cried, and knelt beside his master. Frodo did not turn. He only whispered, "Sam."

"I am so sorry, Mr. Frodo! I did not mean to leave you – I thought you were dead. Please don't be angry with me," Sam said miserably.

"It's not that, Sam," Frodo breathed weakly, his pain-laden voice barely audible. "I am broken. They took everything they wanted, and then they questioned me…and then…they stopped asking questions after a while. They like to break things just for the fun of hearing them crack."

Sam saw then in the red light that his master's body was bent and twisted and paralyzed; his chest was lined with fiery red cuts. Sam wept inconsolably and moaned, "I am so sorry! I am sorry, I am sorry! This is all my fault…"

"Oh, Sam. It is a miracle that you are here. I did not want to be alone at the end. For it is the end. And not only for me. The others will perish as well…" He gasped desperately for breath, faintly crying out as his crushed chest tried to take in air. "When Sauron has the Ring, the free peoples of Middle-earth will all be enslaved. Minas Tirith will fall, and Rivendell…and Lórien. Even the Shire." He sighed, though he seemed beyond weeping. "Boromir was right…the Ring was too great a burden to place upon me. And I did beg for death before the end…I tried not to give them the satisfaction, but…all I could do was scream for it all to end…"

Through his tears, Sam interjected, "No! No, I have the Ring! And we will go to the top of Mount Doom and cast it in and be done with this nightmare. And then we can finally go home."

Hope seemed to lift Frodo's dying spirits as he said, "Sam, you are a marvel. But for you, all truly would be lost." He twitched once more, a motivation stirring within him. "Let me see it one more time, the cause of all my suffering. My bane, like Isildur's."

Inexplicably reluctant, Sam drew it from where it hung on its chain beneath his shirt. He rose, and then knelt once more by his master's head, holding the Ring out. Frodo closed his suffering blue eyes, and whispered hoarsely, "It taunts me – the Eye, the wheel of fire. I do not wish to hunger for the Ring anymore."

Sam began to weep once more, seeing his master's pain, and reached out to touch Frodo's hand. All of the fingers had been broken in his torment. Frodo cried out at Sam's touch, gentle as it was.

"Oh, Mr. Frodo. I don't know what to do," Sam said, his voice trembling.

"Go on to Mount Doom. Destroy the Ring. My part as Ring-bearer is over. I may grant the Ring to anyone I choose: I would have given it to Gandalf, or to the Lady, if they had not refused it; I give it now to you. Though my heart aches to burden you with the suffering that the role of Ring-bearer entails, you are the last one now who may fulfill the Quest." His voice cracked and faded, and only his shallow, labored breathing remained to fill the silence.

"So this is my part to play," Sam said, his voice, though still trembling with tears, suddenly resolute; "my task before the end, that I foresaw back in the Shire."

"So it is, Sam," Frodo breathed hoarsely. "And the tales they tell years from now will turn from being my story to yours; it will not be the legend of 'Frodo and the Ring,' it will be 'Samwise Gamgee and the Ring.'" He laughed as well as he could, then closed his eyes and grimaced in the agony of the mere act of laughter. "Perhaps 'dad's' voice will break and he will wipe away a tear at this part of the book, and his children will tell him to stop getting so emotional and go on with the tale."

"I would not," Sam said, tears starting again; "I would not tell Dad to close the book in the dark places, nor to stop weeping." Sam's voice broke, and helpless and disconsolate, he reached out to brush a sweat-soaked tendril of dark hair away from his master's eyes. Frodo painfully managed a weak smile for this small act of tenderness, and when Sam saw it, he felt as if his heart were shattering within him.

"'Don't you leave him!' they told me – Gildor and the Elves," Sam burst out in a deluge of misery, "but I broke my promise, Mr. Frodo. I broke a promise. I left you, and now I've lost you. It would have been better if I'd stayed."

Gasping slightly, his breathing now a shallow pant and every word evidently costing him, Frodo replied, "Would it have, Sam? They would have taken you, too. They'd have had the Ring. You couldn't have saved me, nor I you; we'd have both been killed." Fighting for air, he rasped on, "Gandalf said…Gandalf said there were forces at work in the world besides the will of evil…and I think those forces…meant for this to happen. Your broken promise and I…we are a small price to pay."

"A small price for what?" Sam demanded bitterly.

"For the freedom of Middle-earth," Frodo said simply, his voice faint but clearer than it had been, his blue gaze focused not on Sam, but past him, through him. "For its future. For having a future at all. Is not my death – yes, death, Sam; I do not fear to say it – a little matter?"

But Sam was not listening. He did not want to hear. "Gollum," he said abruptly. "He's to blame for this, that traitor, that cowardly little sneak. I should never have let you trust him. He'll pay."

"Let it be," Frodo whispered, a small moaning sob of pain escaping him. "If not for Gollum – I never could have shaken the Ring's hold on me. I am free of it now. So let us forgive him. He – even he – played his part in what was meant to be; and so have I. I cannot go home; but I have made my peace with it, Sam, now that you are here. And I'm glad that you're here with me, Sam. Here…at the end of…"

His voice trailed off into a choked cough, and a rivulet of blood dripped from the corner of his mouth. Too weak even to lick it away, he spoke no more, but his eyes still fixed Sam with an expression half of agony, half of pleading.

"It isn't the end," Sam vowed shakily. "I will destroy the Ring, and the others – Strider and Legolas and Gimli and Faramir, and Merry and Pippin – they will not perish, and Minas Tirith and Rivendell and Lórien will not fall. It _isn't_ the end of everything, and it hasn't all been in vain."

A ghost of a smile flitted across Frodo's lips, and his face relaxed, his eyes once more gazing past Sam and into the lands of the West somewhere, perhaps at the Brandywine River sparkling in the sunlight, or the Party Tree in the clearing where hobbit children played, laughing cheerily; or perhaps at the homely garden of Bag End, where the grass was _usually_ neatly trimmed under the windowsill. The broken sound of his ragged breathing stopped as his emaciated, disfigured chest's erratic rise and fall stilled, and only the lonely sound of Sam's weeping could be heard in the heavy silence of the dim, red-lit tower room. Tears flowing freely down his face, Sam reached out with a trembling hand and his rough fingers brought his master's eyelids down over their empty, clear blue eyes in final sleep. Once more, Sam knew he could not give Frodo a glorious burial, for he had to carry on with the Quest, so he rose and unwillingly left the empty shell that was once his master to its fate. The tower of Cirith Ungol was empty of living orcs, so Sam descended the stairs of the tower without assailment, and picked his way among the corpses of the goblins to strive silently with the Silent Watchers of the tower and wend his way through the darkness of Mordor to Mount Doom, and whatever may follow from there.

~~~~~~~~~

"I understand perfectly well now how you felt, Mr. Frodo," Sam muttered, seemingly to empty air, as he trudged along on the barren, ashen waste of Gorgoroth, nearing Mount Doom.

"It looks small, but it's no light burden," Frodo responded inside Sam's head. "I don't begrudge you a collapse every once in a while; I was no better about it."

The week-and-a-half-long hike from Cirith Ungol to the foot of Mount Doom had been torment for Sam. There was little water in all of the parched land of Mordor, and none of it clean whatsoever. He had, however, carried enough _lembas_ to sustain him, with supplement from Faramir's provision, and made it to where he was by drinking water sparingly. A few mouthfuls still remained in his water bottle, and he allowed himself half of one to prepare for the torturous climb up the mountain.

"Though it'd be nice if I knew where I'm going," Sam commented ironically to Frodo. "Where are these 'Cracks of Doom,' anyway?"

"Do you know, I can't help you there. I suppose you'll find one sooner or later," Frodo encouraged Sam from within his mind.

So Sam began climbing among the sharp, protruding rocks that studded the mountainside. Crawling, more like. After ten minutes, he flopped down on his back and moaned, "It's no good, Mr. Frodo. I really can't go on…at least for right now."

"You really have it worse than I did – you don't have yourself to help you along and make you get up when you fall."

"_You_ make me get up – well, thinking of you does. I won't give up because I'm doing this for you," Sam stated. As he said this, another surge of will rushed through him, and he raised himself from the ground and started walking on. He wasn't walking for long before he started crawling again, seeking for handholds among the sharp jutting rocks and rubble that littered the mountainside. He lost track of time and just toiled on steadily, a sluggish but determined engine, detached from the pain in his tired body. When he came back to himself and looked down to the plain from whence he had come, he realized that he was more than halfway up the base. But the cone of the mountain still loomed far above him. He may have gotten this far, but it would be no use if he couldn't find a way to the Cracks of Doom, which may very well be near the top. However, his efforts were rewarded when he spotted a path.

"Why, it's almost as if it were put there a-purpose!" he thought.

"For your use?" Frodo asked him, the tone of his voice amused.

"Well, why not? If it wasn't there, I'd have to say I was beaten in the end. Now the trick is getting from here to the road."

"Think of how much easier a smooth way will be," Frodo prompted, his voice kindly, as Sam remembered back in the Shire; "then it will not be so difficult to go on as you have done for a little ways more."

So at last Sam was able to collapse on the trail and, unmoving, feel the aches that covered his entire frame. "Ow," he said simply. His mouth and throat were too parched to elaborate.

"Look to the East!" Frodo said, or Sam thought it was Frodo; perhaps it was some other voice echoing in his febrile mind. So Sam looked, and saw the dark, menacing towers and pinnacles of the Barad-dûr, abode of Sauron himself, looming on the rise. The red, glowing eye of flame stared, burning its malice, toward some other point, but the mere sight struck cold into Sam's heart. Quailing, his hand automatically groped for the Ring, hanging on its chain about his neck.

"It wants me to put it on, Mr. Frodo," he whispered, terror gripping him. "It wants me to be found."

"I know," said Frodo sympathetically; "it did the same to me, over and over. You must keep your awareness of yourself, Sam, and always tell yourself that you mustn't put it on."

"Easy enough for you to say," Sam was tempted to mutter mutinously. His left hand batted his right away from the Ring and held it down firmly. "Right then, Samwise Gamgee; no more looking east for you. Where to now, Mr. Frodo?" he asked the empty air.

"Follow the path, I suppose," said the benevolent voice of good sense in his head. "It can't take you backwards from where you've come."

"That's so, Mr. Frodo," Sam responded gratefully, and set off again, exhausted but walking on his own two feet.

~~~~~~~~~~

Sammath Naur: the Chambers of Fire, Sauron's forge. The path led right to it, so Sam really couldn't miss it.

And so, like Isildur centuries before him, Sam stood on the edge of Doom with the Ring in his hand, ready to throw it into the flame as Elrond commanded. Sam had thought, though, that it should be relatively easy to chuck the thing in the volcano and have done with it. Not so, for the Ring did not want to be chucked, and it had a commanding mind of its own.

In one part of Sam's wearied mind, it was clearer than anything had ever seemed clear before that he should destroy the Ring, for in doing so, he would bring an end to Sauron's evil in Middle-earth. More importantly, Gandalf, Elrond, and Galadriel – the wisest people Sam had ever known, and the people to whose wisdom he would trust everything he held dear – had said that throwing it in the fires of Mount Doom was the only way to do what was right and necessary, and their reasons made no difference to a humble hobbit.

Yet in the part of Sam's mind where the slowly-consuming, corrupt influence of the Ring held sway, it was clearer than anything that he should keep the Ring. "You earned it," the voice of Temptation, and the voice of the little gold circle lying with its chain limp in his palm, whispered seductively. "Your back was bent, your heart broken, your soul bruised and battered and torn asunder for this, not theirs."

"To destroy it did I suffer, and destroy it I will," Sam argued. "It isn't mine." But his hand would not move to throw the Ring.

"All you did for the sake of the Ring, and it is that easy to get rid of it forever? You could use it to defeat darkness – you, Samwise, could have the power of the One. Would you be content to throw it away and fade again into obscurity, into anonymity? The forces of evil would still roam Middle-earth even after one of their weapons was destroyed; would it not be more effective to use their power against them?"

"No; Gandalf, Elrond, and Galadriel didn't think so," Sam told this voice. He twirled the Ring's chain around his finger, wondering if he ought to toss it now.

The 'power' tack obviously wasn't working, so the Ring's devious maneuverings took another route. "What about Frodo?"

Sam's hand stopped, as it seemed that his heart stopped, for a moment. Those who had died – Gandalf first, then Boromir, and…Frodo. Who still caused Sam's soul the most pain.

The kindly, rational part of Sam's head that had taken on Frodo's persona said sternly to Temptation, "I died trying to destroy the Ring." Sam flinched, as he thought the word: died. "That is what I lived for, and it is what I died for." This seemed enough reason for Sam to finally stop hesitating and finish the quest he and Frodo had started.

Yet the Ring had one more card to play, one more weakness in the wielder of its fate to exploit. "It is all you have left of Frodo."

Sam looked down at the Ring in his hand. He saw it in his mind's eye hanging on the chain around his master's neck, always with him, always as much a part of him as his dark, curly hair or his vivid blue eyes.

"If you destroy it, you destroy any memento of him."

Reason faltered and failed in Sam's mind. The wise, benevolent face of Gandalf faded; Galadriel's ageless beauty and countless years of knowledge faded. All he could see was Frodo, putting the Ring in his vest pocket; Frodo, walking hunched and weary with the Ring a shining golden pendant on his breast; Frodo, his eyes pain-filled as he said, "I may grant the Ring to anyone I choose…I give it now to you."

"If you keep it, you forever keep a part of him."

Reason fled utterly. Ruled by emotion and impulse, Sam's left hand slipped the Ring around the finger of his right. In the swirling gray mists of the wraith world, Sam saw Frodo standing beside him again. "I can't do what I set out to do," he said. "I can't lose everything I have of you, Mr. Frodo."

The vision vanished, though, as the Eye of Sauron was drawn like lightning to the wearer of the Ring. He had found it at last, after millennia of searching. He could be reunited at last with the source of his power. The Ring, triumphant to be discovered at last by its rightful Master, no longer needed to speak with the voice of sweet temptation. Sam's horrified eyes were filled with sights of destructive, pillaging, ravaging monsters of Orcs, leering viciously at him. Hobbits screamed as the Shire burned, its fields and houses reduced to ashes, its trees uprooted, its inhabitants enslaved and cruelly driven.

In his heart, Sam suddenly knew he had failed. He had to salvage what was left of this quest, take off the Ring and destroy it. "I can't take it off, Mr. Frodo," he whispered fearfully, his hand trying desperately to get to the finger that bore the One. "It won't let me take it off."

Then he knew what he must do, as surely as if Frodo had spoken to him and told him. He was no longer important in the grand scheme of things; all the world rested on this – throwing the Ring into the Cracks of Doom.

"You aren't all I have left of Frodo!" Sam cried defiantly to the Ring, drawing Sting clumsily from its sheath with his left hand. He held the Elven blade to his right hand, the metal glowing not blue, but the purest of whites, its Elvish inscription blazing silver, illegible to Sam but the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. He shut his eyes, thinking of the Shire, of all the children of the world, of the beauty and tranquility of Rivendell and Lothlórien, of Frodo dying for the quest, and trying desperately not to think of his finger. The Ring a wheel of fire burning around it, he moved Sting like a flash of lightning and severed the thing of evil from him, if he could not just take it off.

Sam cried out in pain more blinding than any agony he had ever felt, but the deed was done, and the flame-bright ring and bloodied finger fell into the roaring fires of the heart of Orodruin. Just as he saw it fall, Sam heard a wailing, mournful, piteous, terribly broken cry echoing: "My Preciousss! It's lossst forever!"

Darkness flooded Sam's consciousness as the pain in his hand shot through him, and he knew no more. For a little while.

When he returned to wakefulness, Sam's hand hurt immensely, but the mountain was belching fire, so the thought that he probably ought to get off the ledge of the Crack of Doom waved its flag in the haziness of his pain-dazed mind. He stumbled out of the stifling air in the forging chamber and back onto the path on the side of the mountain, where he collapsed, the stump of his finger throbbing.

"Well, that's that done, Mr. Frodo," he gasped. "That's the end. How d'you like that?"

"Besides your hand, I like it very well," Frodo said gently. "What I set out to do has been accomplished. You, too, have written your part in the story, and now all that remains is: 'And he lived happily ever after to the end of his days.' And now we can all have a very well-deserved rest."

"Rest," Sam said blissfully. "That sounds good." He lay sprawled on his back on the ground. "I'd like a very long rest."

"No, Sam! Not too long a rest, not yet. You have something to live for, don't you?"

"Not that I can think of off the top of my head, Mr. Frodo."

"The Fellowship! Merry and Pippin! Strider and the others! They may still live; are they not something to live for?"

Sam considered this, staring up at the ash-darkened Mordor sky. "You will not be with us. The heart of our Fellowship, the reason it existed – that'll be gone."

"What about the Shire? And Rose – Rosie Cotton?" Frodo's voice persisted.

Sam paused to consider again. "I don't rightly remember Rosie. That is to say, I remember she existed, but I don't remember anything about her…how she looked, how she danced, how she laughed. I can hardly even remember home. All I can remember is the Ring, and how heavy it was, and the darkness of Mordor."

"Oh, Sam…" the voice of Frodo sighed sorrowfully.

"And you. I can remember you. And now this is all I have of you, to remember you by." Sam hefted Sting, its steel blade's light extinguished, its edge stained with his blood. "This and my little scraps of memories of you. You're not really here. It's just a voice in my head. It was nice while it talked to me, though. Kept me going."

"That's not true, Sam," Frodo's voice said softly. It was more distinct than the memory that had spoken before; Sam realized that his imagined Frodo's voice had begun to sound like his own. This voice sounded real. "I'm here."

"Then I'm glad you're here with me. Here at the end of all things, Mr. Frodo."

"I'm glad I'm here, too."

Sam closed his eyes peacefully and smiled and, as he had done many cold, lonely nights on the ruined plain of Mordor, absently reached for the comforting, slightly warm glass that was the Light of Eärendil, tucked inside his vest. Then, without opening his eyes, he laughed. "Galadriel's phial! I can scarce believe I forgot this was here! Then that's one thing more that's left of you, master, and I daresay this is more like to you than a sword, too."

Sam felt, rather than heard, Frodo's answering laugh of accord. He drew the phial out from his vest; it did not blaze with white starlight, but glowed steadily, reassuringly silver, dispelling the fiery red-tinged darkness, like its former owner's gentle presence. The cool, serene radiance of Eärendil's star pierced through the choked sky, a beacon that shone bright and clear to the heavens, marking where lay the little hobbit who toppled the Dark Tower.

As he lay with his eyes closed in an island amid the rivers of fire, one memory, from before being weighted with the Ring, remained a beacon in his mind: sleeping, for once able to find rest, sitting with his back against a rock, with Frodo's head cradled in his lap. Sam remembered the feverish heat of his master's forehead under his protective hand, and he remembered the feeling of shielding his best friend from his pain and at the same time being shielded himself. And at last he slept. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sam was not aware when Gwaihir the eagle swooped from the sky, with Gandalf riding on his back, and rescued him from the slopes of Mount Doom. Still he slept, unconscious in his bed in the Houses of Healing in Minas Tirith, when King Elessar Telcontar was crowned, the sovereign of both Gondor and Arnor, uniting Middle-earth and bringing order and peace to the land. He did not hear the words of Merry and Pippin when they spoke to him at his bedside, telling him of the end of the War of the Ring, the glorious coronation of Strider (of all people), the even more glorious weddings of Strider to Arwen Undómiel and Lord Faramir to Lady Éowyn. In his coma-like sleep, Sam did not know of the ceremony honoring Frodo the Ring-bearer; did not hear the lament Galadriel herself sang for him; did not see his master's torn and stained Lothlórien cloak, shining mithril mail-coat, and Elven-made sword interred in the earth in place of his body. But Pippin fancied that Sam smiled sometimes in his sleep, and sometimes almost wept, as if cognizant of the events around him…or perhaps, Merry suggested, reliving distant memories. They both thought that Sam stirred noticeably on September 22, and fitfully on October 6; he seemed to smile fondly and a bit wistfully, Pippin reckoned, on March 11; on March 13, he seemed to sob like a child with a frightening dream. Each time, Merry and Pippin dared to hope he would wake, but each time they were disappointed. On March 25, the anniversary of the final destruction of the Ring, they were sure that Sam would wake up; but he only stirred, clutched the healed stump of his finger, and slept on.

At last Merry and Pippin left Minas Tirith – Minas Anor once again – and their loving vigil to return to the Shire. They found its troubles almost too late, but with Gandalf's help, they were able to straighten things out and set the Shire to rights…more or less. The ugly new buildings were knocked down and the old ones restored, but the new trees would take a long time, and even their great-grandchildren might see no more than spindly saplings where stately oaks once graced the friendly woods of the Shire.

King Aragorn Elessar sometimes visited the forever-occupied bed in the forgotten corner of the Houses of Healing. "The hands of a king are the hands of a healer," the old saw goes, but even the King was unable to wake the somewhat legendary Halfling who ever slept in that part of the infirmary that was simply never used. In place of the expression "When the King returns" for an event that will never come to pass – for the King had indeed returned – some in Minas Anor began to say, "When the Ring-bearer wakes." Aragorn sometimes wondered if he could do nothing because waking Samwise would not be healing him. It pained Aragorn to just sit beside his friend and watch him sleep, knowing he could hear nothing that was said to him, knowing that he dwelt now only in bittersweet dreams. So even the King stopped coming.

And so no one was present when, on the twenty-fifth of March, breath finally left the wasted form of the faithful hobbit who saved Middle-earth. His lips rested in a peaceful smile when he finally left his sleep between life and death for a deeper sleep, and thus the keeper of the Houses of Healing found him. Meriadoc, Peregrin, Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli were informed, but they were not deeply shocked; Samwise had been duly mourned for two years as he slept, and his passing was more a comfort and a relief than a death. But all the remaining members of the Fellowship felt somewhat guilty that none of them had been there to witness their friend's departure…no one except Frodo.

"You've had a long rest, Sam," he said.

"So I have," Sam replied. "Strangely enough, though, Mr. Frodo, I don't feel much better." He paused. "I think I'm ready to go home. I've already packed, you see, like in Rivendell…"

Frodo laughed, but kindly. "Where is home now? The Shire?"

"No, I don't think so," Sam said, puzzled. "It's not that the Shire's changed – it's that I'm different, somehow. Like I've seen too much and hurt too much to be part of it and – and _dirty_ it with what the Ring's sort of _left_ on me. I don't know where home is anymore. _Where the heart is,_ the Gaffer always says; or _where they feed you._ But I don't think that the Shire will ever really feel like home again to me."

"Nor for me, had I the choice."

"So where is home now?"

"West, I believe; always is West the destination of the Sun, and so, perhaps, it is for us. Farther west than the Shire. The Elves have never known where it is that the souls of Men and Hobbits, their kindred come to rest at the end of their road, the Road that we mortals alone can take and the shelter that we alone can find. Bilbo has always said that home most truly is 'Where the weary wanderer may rest, at the end of the Road.' Perhaps that is what is meant by 'the _Gift_ of Men' and not 'the _Curse_' – a place to rest." 

"A home. We can finally go home," Sam said with a half-sad smile. "So now all that's left is: 'And they were happy ever after, to the end of days'?"

Frodo smiled back, his eyes dancing with wry laughter over their habitual solemnity. "I think that ending will do fine."

__

Still round some corner there may wait

A new road or a secret gate,

And though I oft have passed them by

A day will come at last when I

Shall take the hidden paths that run

West of the Moon, East of the Sun.

****

Extended Edition Author's Note **(as if the blasted thing needed to get any longer):** You've brought this on yourselves, you know. All the good reviews I've gotten _encouraged_ me. Of course, the fact that there's a Special Extended Edition DVD of "The Fellowship of the Ring" also inspired me to do this "Extended Edition" of "'Samwise Gamgee and the Ring.'" After I had published the original, I realized that I had left some ideas unexplored, which, I'm sure, is fine; if every fic expounded on every idea in the world of _LOTR,_ they'd all be thousands of pages long and no one would ever bother to read them. But being that I'm me, I became dissatisfied because my fic could have been even deeper and more full of funfun references to the book than it already was. The original was all right on its own, too, just like the theatrical version of the movie, although the new one, like the new version of my story, lent greater significance to some moments, explained a few things more clearly, deepened characters and included more angst, which we all just _love. _*Drools a bit over Elijah Wood saying, "You can't help me, Sam. Not this time" with so much pain in his eyes he's laser-beaming it into everyone watching him.*

First thing I felt compelled to add: A reference to Gildor's enjoinment upon Sam never to leave Frodo, which is very emotionally significant. I am _convinced_ that in the movie of _The Return of the King_, when Sam thinks Frodo is dead, he will say something about what (in the movie-verse) Gandalf supposedly said: "Don't you lose him, Samwise Gamgee." So I thought I should have poor guilt-ridden Sam do the obvious thing that I missed the first time around and blame Frodo's death on himself because he disobeyed the Elves and left his master (or what he thought was his master's corpse) vulnerable to capture by Orcs.

Second and third things I felt like a moron for forgetting: The partial blame Sam would have put on Gollum for betraying them to Shelob. Sam hates Gollum and has always suspected him. _Of course_ he would remember to blame Gollum. (There's a bit of a reference to "Gollum's Song" from _TTT_ – the "I cannot go home" line – that can especially be considered as such because it's mentioned partly in connection with Gollum.) Also, the phial of Galadriel. Another thing of Frodo's that Sam had. Another thing I forgot.

Fourth thing I decided to slip in while I was at it: "And he lived happily ever after, to the end of his days." After all, the title of my story _is_ the title of a hypothetical story. And the ending I had before was hokey, so I decided to modify it a bit. Then completely rework it. And make tie-ins earlier in the story. But now (amazingly, because "I am _never _satisfied with what I write," as Frodo will say in an upcoming entry of _Random Musings_, which, by the by, you should all read if you haven't already) I am actually more or less happy with the conclusion.

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Profuse thanks to my beta-reader TALEWG, who helped me pick what changes to make. And reminded me of more stuff I'd forgotten. Your help and support are sincerely appreciated, and it makes me feel validated when you say my writing moves you to tears. I can say with pride that I've never made anyone bleed, but I've made a few people cry.

Last thing I have to say (other than READ MY FICS): I came up with most of these additions at 3 A.M. after another coffee binge Thanksgiving evening. A binge that consisted of half a cup. Pathetic, n'est-ce pas?


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